Yes, as I thought, the brainwashing has stuck. Never mind, as long as we're both happy with our choices [:D]

DG

[8-)]

If you take a look on the discussion boards besides VSL, you will see I dislike Apple quite a lot at the moment for a number of other reasons. Your insinuation that my statements are either not impartial or not based on direct experience is not accurate. I'm just calling it how I see it.

For example, what Apple has done with the Quad G5 machines + Logic Pro is nothing short of utterly disgusting in my opinion - a very very shady business going on there from what I know, and far from the PPC's being slow they have been dumbing down their PPC software so that the Intel's would run much faster on spec, in fact, with Logic Pro, it has been only capable of running at 50% of processor capacity in the quad machines (this is easily verifiable), but 75% in the new mac pros, In fact, a 2.7 dual G5 will run logic Pro marginally faster than a quad G5 - if bought when the quads were released, of cousre, the quad was much more expensive. A big rip off and very unfortunate for a lot of people (who used Logic no such problem on other software or OSX itself) - from apple, total silence. [8o|] In fact when I posted on the disucssion board on this topic, without breaking their rules of posting, it was deleted twice! And many others experienced the same thing. That's one example.

OS9 was a joke... (not as much as windows95 at least it worked with one app runing - like logic or cubase), other people strongly disagree with me there many top studios are still using it (god knows why) as I said if you turn it on start logic and touch nothing else it will repeatedly work for many years but don't try to do anything else.

PPC machines were over priced, I already said that, yes, and overhyped too but still very cool machines almost deserving of much of the hype, sometimes entirely deserving on some points.

Configuration - you have a point there but I can't find anything that I actually want to put into those PCI slots except a firewire card! - And also, somebody on the net has already swapped the dual core cpu's with quad core cpu's and booted up an 8core mac pro and ran applications on it - OSX used the 8 cores straight off.

My opinions are based on experience and my own considerations of things. You could consider that to suggest otherwise, could be interpretted as an insult, as it is directly disrespectful of the other persons opinion and position without having grounds to be openly so, (in other words just an assumption not facts), and doing so, in fact, could potentially give the wrong idea to others of some arrogance on your part, (which I wouldn't want) or perhaps insecurity of your own position on the matter (surely not the case) [6] [[[;)]]] , however, if so, such as it may be, that would be understandable, I mean, if I still owned a PC instead of my G5, I'd probably feel the same way [6] [6] [:D] [[[;)]]]

As it is, you enjoy your PC ( [:D] [:D] [:D] ) ahem, and er, I'll enjoy my Mac [H] and if you're right, you'll be happy with that conclusion I know I am [[[:P]]] [[[:P]]] [[[:P]]]
ha ha ha.

[:D]

All the best,
Miklos.

Miklos, no insults intended. I just get fed up with reading Mac vs PC arguments, when they should really be OSX vs XP. I had a Mac in my studio far longer than I've had a PC and by and large I hated it. I also can't stand the look of OSX, but if I felt that it was better for my needs then I'd use it.

I have never said that I wouldn't use a PC from Apple, and if there is ever a good reason for me to do so, I will consider it. Currently there is no reason. However, I'm an marketing man's nightmare, as I have no brand loyalty and couldn't care less how pretty, cool or anything else a computer is. It just has to do the job efficiently so that I can get on with my life when I finish work for the day.

DG

@Another User said:

The fact is that with the Mac Pro machines, they're already best set up for samples and mixing by the large bus architecture, large shared cpu caches, fast double bus ram, and the abilit to put four large fast sata drives right inside the machine - it doesn't really have anything that you don't need for samples and mixing.

I agree, but they may be overkill for slave machines. That or the next machine is the one I'll use as my main one when all the software is ready.

I got on really well with my atari, and the fairlight was special.

sigh...........

However, i'm in Daryl's fortress here as far as brand loyalty. I don't have any.
It's the goods that count. (I wonder in the new Nuendo 4 will have a decent score component. Or if the new cubase 4 score editor is finally half decent. Sigh..........)

Seriously now, i'm wondering if we could run a DAW on an entry level CRAY, with their custom built integrated multi processor setup, the Gazillion gigs of ram, and raid array raptors.

You know, like a fairlight, with a supercharger.

http://www.cray.com/products/xd1/index.html">http://www.cray.com/products/xd1/index.html


Sort of puts the 'friendly hardware joust' about performance in perspective.

Regards,

Alex.

just to weigh in here... I love my Mac, much of time, I hate my PC, much of the time. They both work, much of the time, and they both do what I need them to do, much of the time.

Having the MIR running in a dedicated box makes a great deal of sense, to me. Yes, it can be a pain to get multi-machine setps working smoothly, but it's unavoidable, generally speaking. What I personally think would be ideal, though, would be for MIR to be offered as a standalone hardware box. Yes, it would be expensive, but it would be soooo simple! Or, perhaps it could be sold pre-configured in a dedicated Linux-based machine, with some OS setup that's not user-configurable... so we can't f**k it up!

J.

@jbm said:

Having the MIR running in a dedicated box makes a great deal of sense, to me. Yes, it can be a pain to get multi-machine setps working smoothly, but it's unavoidable, generally speaking. What I personally think would be ideal, though, would be for MIR to be offered as a standalone hardware box. Yes, it would be expensive, but it would be soooo simple! Or, perhaps it could be sold pre-configured in a dedicated Linux-based machine, with some OS setup that's not user-configurable... so we can't f**k it up!

J.

I agree, but apparently that is not what VSL wants... [:(]

DG

DG: I disagree it is about the hardware as well as the software, not just the packaging too although that is important.

But you're right the whole argument is annoying so lets agree to disagree and acknowledge that we're none the worse for it ! [*-)] [:D]

Nick: Saying that Mac Pro's are too much as a slave machine is, sorry, but kind of stating the obvious.

All the best,
Miklos.

JBM: That's a good idea however my point earlier in the discussion was this: why buy 16 cpu's when you only need 8. Or why buy 32 when you only need 16 - whatever is needed for MIR. Somebody like me who can't afford to buy more gear than I need - it would be great to be able to run MIR on my existing computer and not have to buy the hardware again. Of course it would always be better in a luxury world (for me anyway) to have a stand alone box then I could mix live! awesome, but until that day comes at least it's good for those on a budget to have the *option* of using their existing machine to run the program and when they make more money, yes, buy a stand alone box.

Miklos.

Miklos, let's trace the thread.

I said the advantage to Windows machines is that you can put together hardware that does just what you need. Your answer was that the Mac Pro is perfect for streaming samples.

So I responded with the bleeding obvious.

I have a feeling that we're having two different conversations that only overlap occasionally. [:)]

The mac pro IS good for streaming samples - it is not good as a farm machine. That is what is obvious.

Miklos.

Okay, I missed something. Why is that obvious?

Sorry Nick, both of those points seem to me to be obvious - the mac pro is very good (if not perfect) for samples use, but as a farm, the large case, extra drives and ram capabilities not to mention cpu are obviously to me anyway, overkill for a farm machine - better would be 3 or 4 minis perhaps with a mac pro as your sequencer/mixer? one possibility anyway. So both statements are fairly obvious to my mind. If you are not a Mac user or up to scratch on thier hardware, I can understand in that case how it would not be obvious at all - if you quoted me dell model names I would be lost - but I was assuming the specs were obvious, perhaps my mistake.

Miklos.

OMG - what have i done ... [:P]
anyway ... just to keep some things in the right order - one can discuss who invented LCD monitors, but for sure it has not been apple, AFAIK all (at least earlier) LCD monitors from apple starting with the 15" studio display 1998 have been produced by LG - the same company which produced my alltime favourite SGI cinema display, the SW1600 (note the specs! - the only LCD-display i have ever seen with an integrated colour calibration and 110 dpi)

what i don't like with the newer apple cinema displays is more caused by the operating system resp. aqua - the smoothed contours, i always have the feeling the picture is unsharp and unfortunately it cannot be switched off.

as an early bird and enthusiastic BSD user (where the roots of mach, openstep, nextstep and at last OS X have to be found) i think i may comment on obvious inconveniances. i have never seen corrupted file permissions in BSD, i have seen them sometimes in windows, but i have never seen them happen so regulary with a simple install of an application like i had to notice it when installing eg. logic on osx - there _has_ in fact some improvement to be done.

the new macPros are - sorry to say that - just another, though powerful, PC with an intel-board and i wrote in an earlier post that IMO this was the really clever strategy. on one hand windows users can run XP on the macPro and on the other hand apple has to develop their further operating systems just for one platform. i'm pretty sure it will not take too long until we see OSX for *ordinary* PCs so opening the market from two sides for apple.

one of the major advantages of BSD is that it runs on almost every platform you can think of - i ran it on ALPHA(†), MIPS(†), PPC(†?), X86, X64 and i think it was the most important piece of open source software ever released. a lot of webservers, the majority of mailservers and AFAIK all DNS-servers run BSD because of its performance, reliability and stability - not all of this attributes have found its way into OSX so far.
what i'm missing most (especially regarding sample streaming) is a configurable pagefile - why let an operating system (released for generic use of a wide range of applications) decide if and how much virtual memory to use if samples cannot even use any? eg. one of the basic rules for good performance is to have the pagefile on another disk than operating system and applications.

hopefully you can notice i do see the advantages, but also just don't conceal the inconveniances. all this is only my personal view only, of course.
christian

christian: of course apple didn't invent lcd's I didnt' say that... [*-)] point taken on the sgi - good screen, but for the time the apple displays have been consistently of the best quality and offered much larger screens that most of the competition: but I digress....

me likey da aqua

[[:|]]

permissions corruption: we are agree don that point - it should not happen and should be fixed, but is this not nit picking?? [:O]

fourth point: AHA [I] so they're not that different from PCs [I] [I] [I] so you *could* adapt MIR to run on it! as paralell software? or mac osx native. Even if you have political issues with Apple [8-)] which I, ahem, respect... [[;)]]

Your fifth paragraph only strengthens the above argument, if you really think Apple with release osx for ordinary machines (he he) then all the more reason to develop for it.

I agree that mac osx should be more tried and true to the original philosophies of bsd and practicalities that flow from that. and I agree about the pagefile, that is a pain, and should be fixed... however, the near future shows that the usage or ram in the next 12 months will grow to a theoretically enourmous number, and practically will only be limited by how much ram you can cram into a machine - lets assume 32 Gb by 12 months from now (optimistic perhaps) - even 16Gb is capable now but for software limitations - isn't that all that would be needed? Or am I technically missing what you said?

Miklos.

@mpower88 said:

Even if you have political issues with Apple [8-)] which I, ahem, respect... [[;)]]

With all respect, I didn't read the slightest political issues in cm's posts, but a lot in yours.

I don't deny my political leanings, but I have prejudices on both sides. However Mathis the plot runs deeper and thicker than you know! Based on reading other posts of Christians in other threads and here I have made an inference led into an assumption, which I hasten to add does not necessarily make it any less true or relevant! [:)]

@Another User said:

permissions corruption: we are agree don that point - it ... but is this not nit picking?

an example why i can't consider such issues not as *nit picking*: if you try to extract an archive (eg. the compressed EXS samples from a pro edition DVD) with UnRarX on a machine with corrupt file permissions you get messages like file not found, format error, unexpected quit, sometimes actually nothing. this comes up without having the corruption related to the files from UnRarX or the DVD of course and disappears as soon as you repair permission.
you don't want to know how many hours, days, weeks of user support such a tiny issue can generate ... and of course no one blames OSX, everyone is furious about the *poor behaviour of VSL libraries* - too bad they have that size.

just check out the ratio of support requests for XP and OSX to understand why i'm alittle bit *picky* about fulfilling basic requirements for an OS. unfortunately this is backed up by a marketing campaign which tries to present OSX as the ever and world's best, unfailing, easy-to-use OS when it is not.
i understand and am aware why: because it's a modern multiple purpose and highly complex system - and it would be no shame to admit this instead of reiterating to communicate one would not need to know anything about computers to use them. this is, especially for *NIX, not true.

my example supporting this point of view: how many OSX users know that program code for running processes stays in the memory even if the respective file has been updated - and is it noticeably mentioned somewhere? it is not. the results can be disastrous.
now one can ask either for the technical understanding or instruct to reboot the computer before and after updating something - both contradicts the original and still published apple philosophy leaving us with the decision to choose the less worse ...
christian

Christian you make good points and although I understand what you are saying I didn't know that until you just said it. However, my simple point, while I reserve that I respect your own experienced final judgement on it is just that I think if you weigh up everything on all sides of the argument, the playing field is *more or less* level now compared to before - that's what I meant by nit picking, not necessarily that particular issue of permissions repair, I probably should have said it better - sorry for that. What I'm saying is that I think things are different than when the original decision to only develop for PC was made - (at which time it made more sense) - now however all I'm saying is that perhaps a review of that decision is warranted and my main argument for such a review is the fact that it would be great for a lot of people to only have to purchase one box of cpu's instead of two. - And by the way thank you for your patience and time in discussing this, I really appreciate it.

Miklos.

thanks for reading and considering my arguments, miklos. to have everything well-balanced i could now write about some things i don't like in windows and probably such a posting would easily become far longer than the ones above [:P]

but back to the topic (at least i think it has been the topic ...): the MIR development started (fortunately) on windows and will be continued for this platform. when all needed requisites will work together as expected we will have some hard times to find the best possible machines - and be assured there will be strong system requirements and only a limited number of supported components (you see parallels to available apple hardware? - intended!)

if we somwhen later have both feet firmly on the ground again and the developers returned from their well-earned vacancies i'm sure someone will check out if a) all components are crossplatform b) all parts of code are portable c) resources are available for a possible OSX version - and this is _no_ promise, this is just to state it is TBD and the anwer can finally be yes or no.
christian